


The Mandalorian's Duchess

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Series: Two Jedi Walk Into A Mandalorian [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Female Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mandalorian Culture, Past Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Past Torture, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22187755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: While she agreed the video presented to the Senate was doctored, she wasn't sure if she had any inclination to help Satine prove it.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & CT-7567 | Rex, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Satine Kryze
Series: Two Jedi Walk Into A Mandalorian [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553227
Comments: 42
Kudos: 382





	The Mandalorian's Duchess

On Coruscant, she had no official lodging. Aboard the _Endurance_ , she got the room reserved for the unit's Commander, while Ahsoka took one of the three rooms set aside for the Jedi or otherwise appointed Generals and Admirals. Planetside, in combat, she always slept with the brothers. They were her family, she would stay with them. But on Coruscant, she was an afterthought. 

So, in light of their recent adventures and her more shaky emotional state, Rex offered her use of his quarters. They were big enough here to share, as a commanding officer. She insisted she sleep on the lacklustre couch, which he had immediately disallowed. 

"It's a bunk and a half, Obi." He said flatly. "You're sleeping on the bed with me."

"Fine, but not because you told me to." She finally gave in, putting her helmet down on the small desk. He had a stand for the armour, but it was made for the full plate of a clone, and she folded hers anyway. 

That night - their first on Coruscant since she'd deployed with them - he saw her bare in her entirety. 

Amongst the brothers, nudity was a null subject; what else was there to see they couldn't look down and find? Obi-Wan informed them that such a custom wasn't foreign to Mandalorians either, that families, couples and siblings (meaning close friends that may as well be family, by her definition) were often mostly bare in each other's company. It was a sign of trust to be without arms in one's presence. But the situations they were in either afforded her a private refresher, or she was filthy like the troops. Even aboard the _Endurance_ , it was considered impolite at best and punishable at worst to be naked for any great length of time. 

So, when he offered her his (small, but serviceable) CO's 'fresher, he wasn't exactly scandalized to see her strip down in the middle of his room and start placing her armour down properly. What he was taken aback by were the scars across her back, and the nine silver studs in a grid position that looked angrily stapled into her skin. 

"Kark . . . " He breathed, stepping up behind her and unconsciously reaching out, rough fingertips lingering on her skin. She stiffened under his touch, very abruptly reminded she'd cut her hair off to the shoulder. "Obi-Wan . . . "

"The black ones are burn scars from plasma lashes." Her voice was dispassionate, but the stiffness in her body meant the wounds in her mind were far from closed. "The rivets were drilled in to make a taser round or lash incapacitate me completely. That's why they cover my whole back and sit in my spine, so I would freeze and drop."

He wanted to ask, and at the same time he most certainly didn't. So, instead of trying to verbalize his sympathy, empathy, pity and sorrow, he let his hands run down the slope of her back, then slide around her front, pulling her into a hug from behind. He pulled her in close, the metal pressing body-warm against his own bare chest and the ragged scarring catching against his downey and sparse chest hair. She sunk into the embrace. When he hooked his chin over her shoulder, squeezing her tightly, she let her head rest against his with a weary sigh. 

"You're with us now - with me." He promised, emotion roiling in his heart. "I won't ever let it happen again."

She laid her hand over his, achingly gentle. Her blaster calluses were as bad as his, a life hard-lived. "I won't hold you accountable for the past, Rex."

She must be able to feel the way his heart broke to hear the resignation in her voice. "It's not. It's your future. And you're with us."

"Your life isn't worth more than mine."

"I value your life exactly as I value my own, and the lives of my brothers." He kissed her shoulder just because the action felt right and tangled their fingers together. "Never again, Obi-Wan."

Her exhale was shaky, weighed down with all the words she couldn't say. "Okay."

They stayed like that, holding onto each other in a small room in dingy barracks. One holding so tightly he felt like he might never be able to let go, the other with tears streaking her face and a knot around her heart coming loose. 

| | | 

In was either deep in the night or early in the morning when her comm went off. Either way, she was not enthused.

She extricated herself from the ivy-like embrace Rex had her wrapped in, shivering against the chill of steel and concrete (naked as she was, with an equally naked Rex being a space heater all by himself) and picked up the comm, squinting at the blocked name. She answered it. 

"What."

_"Obi-Wan?"_

She was abruptly more awake. "Satine?"

_"I need your help."_

"What in the name of Ka'ra makes you think I give a damn about what you want, Kryze?"

 _"I wouldn't call you to settle my issues."_ She sounded defeated, as though their last confrontation had worn down her defenses. _" I need help for Mandalore, and I don't have any allies aside from you who can help me with this."_

"The video."

_"Yes."_

"Meet me on the front steps of the Jedi Temple in twenty minutes, dressed down."

* * *

She made it there before Satine, and even then the Duchess still looked very much like an aristocrat. Subtlety had never been a strength of hers, to be frank. 

"You came." Satine breathed when she got close, looking like she wanted to wrap her fellow Mandalorian in a hug but wisely refraining. 

"If I were a heartless mercenary, I wouldn't have taken the job from the Jedi." She replied, perhaps more sharply than strictly necessary. Satine flinched, wounded, but she found little sympathy inside herself for the Duchess. 

"You were right about the Death Watch." Satine admitted softly. "About everything. I was a fool, Obi-Wan, but I have no one else to turn to. If we cannot find the original tape, I fear Mandalore will be thrown into civil war. I will lose control over the planet and the people if my promise of peace is not kept, but you-"

"I know what I would lose." She cut her off. "But you and I have to make one thing clear right now, before I so much as lift a finger to assist you."

"Name it."

She stepped up into Satine's face with a menacing growl. "We do this my way, and you keep your mouth shut about all of it."

Satine looked about ready to refuse, but swallowed her pride with the forced exhale to calm herself. "I accept."

"I'm going to hold you to that. If you bother me so much as to fix a hair on my head, I'll abandon this entirely. Mandalore will burn before you speak down about me, Satine."

Shame-faced, the blonde nodded stoic acceptance. "I had hoped you would respect my politics, but I knew that even if you did not, I still needed your help when I called upon you."

"A wise bargain to make ahead of time." She tightened the leather halter holding on her slim rifle and both her wood-hilted beskad. "Follow me."

The two of them walked quietly through the streets, meeting not much of anyone. The upper levels of Coruscant experienced this kind of peace, not the lower ones. 

Satine kept sneaking peeks at her. 

"What is it?"

"I've never seen clothes like that before."

"It's the clone blacks."

"You have clone armour?"

"No."

"Who does it belong to?"

"My captain." She sent a sharp glance Satine's way. "Don't get anything on it."

"I'm no fool, Obi-Wan. I know what wearing another's armour means."

"It means I haven't done any casual shopping for almost two years."

"It means you have feelings for him. I take it he doesn't know?"

"I will throw you from this bridge, Satine, I swear on the Ka'ra."

Satine shut up, the hostility in her voice palpable. Still, she kept looking. And the more she looked, the more she saw. 

The blacks had the Republic crest stitched into the shoulder, as per regulation, but something else struck her as off. The halter and tack she was wearing belonged to her, as did the scruffy waist-length shawl. The white armour on her arms and lower legs - both beaten matte by time and painted with blue stripes - obviously didn't belong to her. Neither did the slim ammo belt she wore around her waist, some to think of it. 

She wanted to ask where Obi-Wan had been when she called, if this captain of hers even knew the armour was gone. Perhaps he insisted she take it, though her beskar armour was better. 

Obi-Wan's hair was thick with the waves it got when she didn't brush it after bathing, though Satine still wasn't used to how short it was. She didn't know whether she liked that look on her. But, as two days ago had proved, she didn't have any room to comment on Obi-Wan or her life choices any further. She'd resigned herself from that post a long time ago, and the ginger's frosty tones meant she wasn't intent on giving Satine the position back any time soon. 

| | | 

She watched from a decent distance away as Obi-Wan spoke with one of the Clones on duty around the Senate. He was wearing the armour of a Commander, and mostly red. He seemed to know her, even if they weren't overly familiar. She spoke with him lowly, then passed him something. He assessed the item, then nodded. He fiddled with it, then passed it back to her and walked off as though nothing had happened. 

She was gestured over, and Obi-Wan lead them silently into the Senate. 

_"Guards on Quadrant 3, Section 4, a civilian reported a lurker on the balconies."_

_"Affirmative. Will investigate."_

"Is that us?" She asked nervously.

"Fox is clearing our way through the lower levels." Obi-Wan replied, face set in focus, looking for something Satine didn't understand. 

"Why would he do that?"

"So I'll owe him a bottle of Vermilion Abrilla."

"Isn't that an expensive Skyyr vodka?"

"Yup." Obi-Wan stopped at a door, holding up the small device she'd handed Fox and gently opening a passage of unlit stairs. "I gave him a taste for it, but clones don't have salaries. I'll probably make it two."

She followed the bounty hunter down the stairs, almost falling a few times from their steepness, and was led into a dim room full of computers. Obi-Wan plugged the device into a console and got to work, digging up both versions of the recordings. 

"So they did have it!" She exclaimed. 

"Of course they did. The real question is who doctored it." Obi-Wan was frowning at what she was looking at, but saved both files, pulled the device out, and went back up the stairs. 

"That was painless." She commented. "Where do we go now?"

"Now we go to break in some skulls."

Satine winced at the wording, but followed her anyway.

| | | 

The underbelly of Coruscant was seedy and disgusting. There was no such equivalent on Mandalore, where everything was filthy and absolutely nothing was safe. 

"Do you know where to find the editor?" Satine asked, folding in on herself as if to escape the desperate poverty around her. 

"No. There were multiple middle men. It's called laundering evidence." Obi-Wan seemed to have no difficulty or concern navigating through the cramped streets and ignoring the scene around her. Satine remembered Obi-Wan telling her it was on Coruscant that she'd made her name as a hunter, but she'd not cared enough to ask for how long she'd been there. She was more intent on being rescued at the time. "Couriers will pass it off between them, unaware of its origin or destination. The upside of this is that they're also not willing to die for the package."

"Die?"

Obi-Wan didn't turn to face her. "If you're going to get cold feet, Duchess, I suggest you turn tail now before too much poor rubs off on you."

"This isn't something that happens on Mandalore." She admitted. 

"Where you can see it." Obi-Wan amended coldly. 

"What do you mean?"

"What happened to all the mand'alor you unpersoned? Where do you think they went? How do you think they lived once the government confiscated their livelihoods?"

She frowned. "I wasn't responsible for that."

"You didn't fix it, either."

She had no answer to that, and Obi-Wan let her stew in it.

They walked up to a small hovel, and Obi-Wan knocked on the door. 

A Toydariatestnswered, reeking of old alcohol. He squinted at Obi-Wan's masked face, then broke into a grin. "Kenobi! You crazy bitch, you're still around?"

"Of course, Pabuelo. Did you think the holonews was wrong?"

"Last time I seen you was so long ago, I was almost sure it was fake. What can I do for you?"

Obi-Wan dropped credits into his outstretched hand. "A delivery of a holo to the Senate. An edit job."

Pabuelo looked down at the credits and counted them, pursing his lips. "It was for a blue guy, an advisor or something, in red robes. What he did with it, I dunno."

"Who was the editor?"

He wavered again. 

"You know what I'll do if you don't tell me now." Obi-Wan's voice remained neutrally friendly. "Couriers aren't much use with broken arms."

Pabuelo sighed. "I don't actually know who they are, only the address. Very reclusive, you know."

"Indeed."

"Recelli, 759634, 5463."

She dropped another handful of credits into his hand. "Sorry for waking you up so late."

He smirked again. "You're so much more frightening now, Kenobi."

"A lot happened in the fifteen years since we met, Pabuelo." She said warmly. "None of it good."

"Well, don't get yourself killed and don't bring my couriers into your business, you Mando bitch."

"I'll do my best."

Pabuelo shut the door to his hovel and Obi-Wan turned to walk down another street. 

"What just happened?" Satine asked, rushing to keep up. 

"That address is abandoned."

"Then why pay him?"

Obi-Wan didn't answer. 

| | | 

Satine flinched when Obi-Wan grabbed what looked like a random passerby and slammed him into the wall. She raised one hand near his head. 

"You're going to take me to the house of the Senate contract." Obi-Wan growled. 

"I will take you to the house of the Senate contract." He replied, voice wobbling. 

She let him go and followed him silently. Satine wasn't sure what she'd done to secure his aid so quickly, nor how she even knew him. 

The courier stopped at a corner. "We meet at the Recelli address, but he lives there."

"Keep your arms and go."

He scurried off without another word. 

"How did you know he would help us?"

"Pabuelo always uses the same two at the start and end of a contract. You're supposed to get lost in the middle." Obi-Wan crouched and reached into the back of her belt, pulling out one of the spider droids that had attacked her on the ship. It popped awake, twitching around in her palm. "Download everything."

The droid hopped out of her hand and scuttled away.

"You salvaged it from the ship?"

"Having a covert way to steal information is never without it's uses. Anakin is very handy that way." She sat, crouched and watching the door. A beep went off on her comm and a red light switched to yellow. "Follow me."

Obi-Wan broke down the front door to the decrepit building, scaring the hell out of the Zabrak hunched over a terminal. 

Obi-Wan was across the room in seconds, pulling the man away from the terminal and slamming him down on the table, a viroblade coming to life between her fingers. The light on her comm turned blue, and Satine spotted the little spider hunkered down over a wireless connector port. It's eye was blue as well. 

"What were the exact orders given to you for the Senate job?" She snapped, the viroblade hissing. 

"S-senate job?" 

She covered his mouth, then slammed the blade down in the middle of his hand. "Try again."

She pulled it out after a moment, and let him breathe. "The courier came with it!"

"I didn't ask how you got it." She sliced through one of the horns on his head. 

He whimpered, eyes watering in pain. "The orders- the orders are on my desk!"

"Don't play stupid with me, Kej. We both know better than that." She took his other hand and dislocated his small finger. The longer he took to answer her, the more fingers she dislocated. When she got to this thumb, he broke. 

"Okay! Okay! I'll tell you!"

She eased off a bit, but was still leaned over, the shadow of a threat. 

"It was to unseat the Duchess of Mandalore. They'd killed the man in the message, now they needed his last testament doctored to go to war with Mandalore."

She let up some more. "Go on."

"The- The Chancellor's aide was the final drop, but even I don't know who the client was. It was a dead drop with a hand written note in Basic. I was paid in CIS credits, so it might have been the Seps."

"I want the note."

"Take it! Take it!"

She got off him and he fell to the floor, clutching his ruined hands to his chest, trying to breathe through coming sobs. She skimmed the neat desk and plucked the only handwritten note from amongst the pile. 

"Was there anything else in the drop?" 

"Just the note and the pad!"

"Which pad? Do you still have it?"

"The grey one with the red stripe."

She took that too, and walked past him. She gestured for Satine to exit before her, then tossed a small silver ball back inside and shut the door. 

They retreated to their former alley. The light went from blue to green, and a few moments later the spider crawled up onto Obi-Wan's shoulder. She clicked a button on a separate panel strapped to her thigh. 

There was an abruptly cut off scream, then an explosion. 

"Let's go." Obi-Wan walked them out and away like nothing happened. 

"Did you kill him?"

"Yes."

She felt ill. "Was that the explosion?"

"No. That was to destroy the hardware so no one could get what I stole."

She wanted to vomit, complicit in such violence. "Why? Why did he have to die?"

"Because he saw both of us there."

"He might have stayed quiet."

"Like he did for his previous employers? Unlikely."

"It wasn't necessary."

Obi-Wan's voice was laced with venom, sickly sweet and toxic. "Welcome to the galaxy, your Grace."

| | | 

Back on the upper levels, Obi-Wan stopped into a store, bought a data chip, and used the datapad to transfer the undoctored holo onto the fresh device. 

"There." Obi-Wan handed her the circular chip, and Satine had to force herself to take it. 

"Thank you."

The sun was rising, and it set Obi-Wan's hair aflame. She could remember why she'd fallen for the hunter, but she only felt sick after tonight's events.

"Don't ask me for anything ever again." Obi-Wan replied, turning away. 

"Are you blaming me for wanting to help my state?"

"You're a hypocrite. At the first sign of adversity, you resort to violence."

"I resorted to you, not to violence."

"You know what I am."

"Evidently, I do not."

"I said what, not who."

Satine sighed. "I don't want to fight."

"Then don't. Take this last favour and get out of my life."

There was so much she wanted to say, apologies and condemnations all tangled on her breath, but ultimately, she managed to say nothing before Obi-Wan walked away, slipping back into the shadows cast by the buildings and vanishing amongst the durasteel and duracrete, as hard and unforgiving as they were.

She tucked her hand to her chest, the favour in her hand, and went back to her lavish apartment, feeling abruptly out of place amidst the comfort and space. 

She looked around the room, at all the amenities she was afforded and an echo of Obi-Wan's words came to her lips. 

"Just not where I can see it."

* * *

She slipped back into Rex's room to find him still laying on the bed, lazily watching the door. 

"I was hoping I would be done before you awoke."

"Not a problem. You're back plenty early." He sat up, naked as the day he was born. "Might I ask why you're wearing parts of my armour?"

"I had an errand to run for a friend and my own armour would be too recognizable."

"Satine?"

She sighed, laying down her mask. "Yes, Satine."

He just nodded. "So, you went to see your former lover in my armour? In my blacks, even?"

She began to strip out of it, avoiding eye contact. "It appears so."

"May I ask why?"

"I don't have casual clothing of my own and-" She took a sharp breath, "and I needed you there with me. Not physically, but- for my mind."

He nodded slowly and slid off the bed, coming to stand in front of her and tipping her face up to meet his. He gently bumped their foreheads together. "You don't have to be strong all the time, Obi."

She closed her eyes, breathing out heavily and leaning into him. "I know that now."

His thumb brushed along her cheekbone, oh so gentle and sweet. "Good."

She met his gaze again, hardened blue-green turquoise against warm honey amber. "You're so beautiful, Rex."

He huffed a laugh. "Plenty that look just like it, Obi."

"Maybe, but no one else looks at me like this." Her fingertips, clad in his blacks, slid along the bottom of his jaw, featherlight and cautious. "Just you."

If he were in one of Echo's holos, he would have swept her off her feet and kissed her senseless. As it was, he was just wrapped in the tension of the moment, not sure what the right thing to do would be and unwilling to break the tension to find out.

Obi-Wan brushed her nose against his. "When is assembly?"

"Skywalker's gone to see Amidala and Tano is visiting a friend at the Temple. Tomorrow's a lazy day."

"Let me undress, then sleep?"

"Sure." He backed off, the tension easing into soft anticipation. He laid back down on his side, watching her strip off the armour and tack, setting it aside neatly like she'd not moved it, finally shedding the blacks and climbing back into bed with him. 

They lay face to face, staring at each other, close enough to share breath. 

"I'm glad you're here." He admitted, unafraid. 

"So am I." She replied, leaning into him. 

He draped an arm over her waist, pressing against her back. For the first time in years, she didn't feel ashamed of those marks, of herself at all. 

"Rex."

"Obi-Wan."

She hid her face in his chest, letting him pull her closer. They fell asleep like that.

* * *

* * *


End file.
